Mindful Body

• Place both feet flat on the floor, with a strong spine, and head floating.
• Take a deep breath in.
• Exhale, letting everything relax around the strong spine, like a flag hanging from a flagpole.
• Take a moment to notice  the downward force of gravity on your body.
• Let your feet sink into the floor, your seat sink into the chair.

Sound

• Get into a mindful body position. 
• Allow eyes to close.
• Let your attention to go to the sounds around you: in your body, in the room, and beyond
• Enjoy the peace of not having to pay attention to anything else except sound.
• Noticing sounds coming and going is great practice for allowing our thoughts, emotions, and experiences to come and go.
• When your attention wanders, very gently bring it back to sound.​

Breath

• Get into a mindful body position.
• Allow eyes to close.
• Take several deep breaths and notice where you feel your breath most clearly--nose, chest or belly. Or maybe it is feeling the breath more broadly across the whole body, as if the whole body were breathing. Wherever you feel the breath most clearly, this is your anchor.
• Allow your attention to go to your anchor, and begin following your breathing there.
• Enjoy the peace of not having to pay attention to anything else except your breath.
• Allow the tide of your breath coming in and going out to soothe you.
  
• When your attention wanders, very gently bring it back to the breath. 
• Staying with the breath is great practice. Bringing the attention back to the breath over and over is also great practice. Above all, be gentle and patient with yourself.
• If you wish, add in a light anchor word with the breath, such as "breathing in; breathing out' or "rising; falling."
  
• You may also use a light anchor word to touch on where the mind went before gently bringing it back to the breath, such as "planning", "remembering", "thinking", "sound", or "feeling".
• Start with 3 breaths in a row. Work up to 1 minute. If you want, you can gradually build up to 5 or 10 minutes over the course of a few weeks or months.​

Body

• Lay down on your back on the floor, with arms and legs outstretched and eyes closed.
• Take a few moments to become aware of gravity and its downward force on your body.
• See if you can completely let go of holding yourself up in any way.
• Allow everything to sink into the floor--bones, muscles, organs, tissues, fluids.
• Let your attention or awareness move across your body like a flashlight or paintbrush, as you feel each part from the inside, allowing it to fill with sensation. Move slowly through your head; parts of the face; neck and throat; shoulders; parts of the arms; hands; chest and heart; belly; parts of the legs; and feet;
• As your attention rests on each part of your body, let it be an invitation to relax and feel that part of the body from the inside.
• Finish by pulling back and becoming aware of your whole body at once, full of sensation and available.​

Emotions

• When you realize you are having a strong emotion, take a deep breath and bring your attention to your physical body. What sensations do you notice?
• Our emotions have a fingerprint along the front axis of the body:  
• Check out what sensations you notice in the head, face, throat, chest, and belly.
• See if you can name the emotion(s) you are experiencing. Take your time.
• Acknowledge that this is how you are feeling in this moment without extra judgment or needing to change it. "I'm feeling _________. This is how it is right now."
• Allow yourself to feel the emotion for several breaths, focusing on the sensation in your body. With each breath, give it space and allow it be there. Stay with the physical sensation of the emotion rather than the storyline or circumstances surrounding the emotion. This helps it move through your system.
• ​If you become entangled again with mental storyline, circumstances, or plans surrounding the emotion gently bring your attention back to the physical sensation. You may need to do this several times during the practice and that is completely normal.
• You may begin to notice that the awareness with which you are noticing the emotion is larger than the emotion you are experiencing. See if you can offer yourself kindness and understanding, the way you would with a friend or small child who came to you upset. 
• You are practicing being patient with yourself and your limits as a human being. You are caring for the difficulty you are experiencing right now. You are developing a more peaceful relationship with yourself and your experience.

Heartfulness

Kind thoughts toward others

• In this practice, we direct kindness toward someone we care about,  and/or someone we are having a difficult time with.
• Allow this person to come to mind and imagine this person doing something that makes them very happy.
• Offer kind thoughts to this person in your mind:
  • May you be at ease.
  • May you be happy.
  • May you be healthy.
  • May you be peaceful.
  • May you have joy in your life.
• You may use these phrases, make up your own, or offer kindness without using words.
• We do not need to change our natural feelings. Heartfulness is choosing to love someone even if we don’t like them right now. We are connecting with the goodness of our own heart and nurturing happiness inside ourselves.

Kind thoughts toward ourselves

• In this practice, we direct kindness toward ourselves.
• Imagine yourself doing something that makes you very happy.
• Place a hand on your chest, or one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. Offer kind thoughts toward yourself:
  • May I be at ease.
  • May I be happy.
  • May I be healthy.
  • May I be peaceful.
  • May I have joy in my life.
• You may use these phrases, make up your own, or offer kindness without using words.
  
• We do not need to change our natural feelings. Heartfulness is choosing to love ourselves even if we don’t like ourselves right now. We are practicing being patient with ourselves. We are offering ourselves strength from a deeper place of wisdom inside. We are connecting with the goodness of our own heart and nurturing happiness inside ourselves.

Gratitude

Choose one or more of the gratitude practices below:

1. Take a few minutes to list everything you can think of that  you are grateful for—-these things can be ordinary or more significant things…
2. Allow 3 things to come to mind that you are grateful for…
3. Reflect on 1 or 2 things you did well today.
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• One at a time, let these things come to mind as clearly as possible. Take a deep breath and soak in the goodness of these things. Notice where you feel this in your body.
  
• Take a moment to consider what needs were met by these things or happenings you are grateful for. Allow yourself to savor and soak in the enjoyment and pleasure. 
  
• In the midst of the ups and downs of life, you are nurturing and supporting yourself with the goodness of all that is available to you.
• Research shows individuals who practice gratitude regularly have higher levels of well-being, fewer physical symptoms, feel better about their lives, are more optimistic about the coming week, and are more likely to make progress toward important personal goals.

Gratitude in the midst of difficulty

• Become aware of something that feels difficult or overwhelming, that seems to take up all the space on your mental “screen”.
• “Zoom out” as you would with a phone or camera.
• As more space shows up around the difficult thing, allow yourself to see what else is in the picture of your life and experience.
• You are not denying or ignoring the difficulty; you are making space to also see some things you can be grateful for.
• Take a deep breath and soak in the goodness of these things. You are nurturing and supporting yourself with the goodness that is also available to you in the midst of your difficulty.
• Research shows individuals who practice gratitude regularly have higher levels of well-being, fewer physical symptoms, feel better about their lives, are more optimistic about the coming week, and are more likely to make progress toward important personal goals.